Una mona que se viste de seda...

It's only in the last couple of years that I've had any real interest in clothes.

I was very heavy growing up and it was drilled into me that I was 'too fat' for it to be worth buying me 'nice' clothes. I dressed in jeans, tee-shirts, sweats, hiking boots and looked quite 'butch' with my short hair, even though there was a girly girl inside just dying to come out.

Time has passed, outdoorsy jobs have gone, and I now work in an office. And I have developped an Interest in Clothes.

I'm still heavy, but I'll always be a 'big girl', tall with big bones and developed muscles (I work out and run) so I accept myself the way I am. One of the biggest changes is that I decided that I wasn't going to stand my thinning hair anymore. I have alopecia and can see in my mother and grand-mother what my hair is going to look like. It's bad enough now. So, almost two years ago (hey, the day after I became Wiccan, huh), I got my first wig. Suddenly, I felt almost pretty! My clothing choices thereafter were quite different.

I'm not an attractive woman. In fact, when I take off my wig at night, I look like a guy in drag. While I have a massive bosom (and am on a waiting list for a breast reduction), I'm otherwise built like man, with narrow hips, no thighs, no butt. I used to think there was nothing that could be done for a woman like me and I shouldn't even bother. I didn't need to wear 'pretty things' to get a guy, so why bother?

Well, a year ago, I made a huge choice that has changed my life even more than the wig did: I stopped wearing pants! I realised that pants a) make me look fat because they don't fit properly (big stomach with no butt, hips or thighs, makes for ill-fitting pants); b) don't weather seasonal weight fluctuations; c) make me look masculine. So, I began to wear skirts. I now own dozens of skirts in all sorts of styles and for all sorts of weather. Like with all my clothes, I never, ever pay anything full price, so that's how I've been able to build my skirt wardrobe. Now, I always look cute and feminine, even if I'm wearing a boring top like a plain tee-shirt and flat shoes. Once people got over the shock of seeing in skirts all the time and stopped betting that would not last the winter (HA!), opinions began to trickle in that, hey, I was completely right.

And I never wore skirts because I was told they would make me look fat. Gee. I'm glad I stopped listening to that particular person.

Now, I need to build my tops wardrobe, but I'm waiting to have my reduction before I invest too much there. That said, I don't pass up any deals on tops, like the flirty little ruffled knit vest I picked up today for 10$, marked down from 59$! It's not something I'd normally wear, but I love the style, it goes with everything I own, it's a style I've always wanted to try, and it's good quality for only 10$.